Why Did It Have to Be?
by Tazlet
Summary: The tale explores how an intimate friendship might have been prompted to become physically intimate.
**Why Did It Have to Be…?"
** Taz

My friend Sherlock Holmes has been known to assert that Surry is the most criminally prolific of the Home Counties. I've never argued the matter with him; it stands in my memory as the scene of one of the most lurid adventures our long association has ever occasioned. The tale itself was published years ago in The Strand Magazine. With the names disguised of course, it appeared under the title of The Speckled Band, and told of the despicable character of Dr. Grimsby Roylott, the hideous murder of his stepdaughter, Julia Stoner, the attempted murder of his stepdaughter Helen Stoner and Roylott's own gruesome death. I have never told the aftermath to a living soul…

The printed tale tells how we crossed the unkempt grounds of Stoke Moran Manor that night, encountering a baboon, and hearing the whine of a prowling cheetah. We entered the house and waited in Ms. Stoner's room for who knew what. In the dark all of my senses were elevated. I could feel the cracks in the floor boards through my stockinged feet. At one point there was bang of a slamming door. I must have jumped. "Easy, Watson," Holmes murmured. The next day I found his grip imprinted on my wrist. For hours we sat in silence, and I felt the subtle feather touch of his breath on my ear. And then the sound. It was soft and soothing, as if a jet of steam continually escaping from a kettle. Then the blinding flaring of a match! Holmes rising and striking out with his cane, like the sword of an avenging angel! "You see it, Watson?" he shouted. "You see it?" I saw nothing. I was blinded by the flame. I did hear the horrible hoarse yell and the world knows how we entered the Roylott's bedroom we found him dead in a chair, with his chin cocked up and his eyes staring rigidly at the ceiling. Bound tight around his head…

"The speckled band!" I whispered, as Holmes took a step forward.

I reached to stop him and then froze because that was the moment that the snake lifted its squat diamond head. Its neck was puffed out, and it fixed me with its dreadful black unfeeling gaze. I went cold, as if it had stung me.

Holmes, unaffected by the threatening posture of the serpent, calmly took the dog whip from Roylott's limp hand. He captured the animal and thrust it into an iron safe. I managed to pull myself together enough to examine the body. The fast acting venom had done its work. I noted the time: 5 a.m... The rest of the morning was spent notifying the authorities of the tragic accident and escorting Ms. Stoner by train to her good aunt at Harrow.

Such are the facts of the case.

Holmes and I were exhausted by the time we returned to Leatherhead. We had been awake for more than 24 hours at that point and, rather than go back to London that night, we elected to spend the evening at the Crown Inn where we had engaged a bedroom and sitting-room on the upper floor.

Our rooms commanded an excellent view of what had been the inhabited wing of the Stoke Moran Manor House. In the gathering darkness I found myself looking toward the darkened windows and reflecting on the hideous trap that had killed Julia Stoner and was certainly intended to kill Helen Stoner.

The Crown had provided an excellent dinner but I had little appetite. Despite the warm spring day, it seemed as if I had been cold for hours. I shivered.

"Go to bed, Watson," Holmes said. "You're done in."

"So I am," said I. And went into the bedroom and began to undress. Unthinking, I pulled off my tie. It was a beige silk affair with brownish red spots, and I draped it over the turned foot rail. I was removing my trousers, stripping down to the light combination in which I intended to sleep, when the flame in the oil lamp began to gutter. I arranged the trousers over the back of a chair, and went to adjust the wick. Tired, clumsy, I turned the screw too far. The flame blazed bright and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something slide over the foot of the bed. It dropped to the floor, I let out a hoarse cry and Holmes came running.

"Watson! Are you…!"

"Snake! Look out for the snake!" I was backed up against the dresser and pointing.

"Where?" he said.

"There!" I pointed. What was the matter with the man? Couldn't he see it?

"Where?" he demanded.

"Oh!" I caught my breath, as I realized. "Oh, God!" I was pointing at my tie coiled on the floor. I gasped and, in a sudden burst of relief, let out a quick bark of laughter. "I saw it slide over the bed rail. It looked like a cobra! Ever since India… I hate snakes!"

Holmes too laughed. "It's all right. No snakes. No cobras. My dearest friend." He came and caught up me in his arms. "Good Lord, you're cold!"

The sinewy strength of arms was around my waist. I felt the velvety corduroy of his coat, and the smooth satin of the brocaded waistcoat he had on, the flutter of the bow-tie under my chin, and—neither of us had had time to shave that day—the scape of his whiskers, and the slight, lingering scent of Bay Rum.

Suddenly, I was shivering because of the surge of warmth were flooding through me. I wanted to consume him, and to be consumed by him. To possess him. To know him intimately in every possible way. I realized he must be feeling my hardness through the combination. I could feel that the let cotton was wet, and that brought me up short. If he wasn't repulsed by the evidence of physical passion, this was still Sherlock Holmes, the most rational of men. I did not want to be a case study. I drew back and looked into his eyes for a clue.

His eyes were half-lidded and smoky. He held on to me tighter. "Oh, my dear friend," he groaned. "No."

I remembered how he had dressed himself fully before coming to wake me on the morning Ms. Stoner came to Baker Street to beg his help. And how he had introduced me as 'my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you may speak as freely as before myself.'

"I love you," I said.

"Oh…I love you, too." He laughed. "My dearest friend, I can't promise to be the most skillful of lovers."

"No one is, at first." I began to undo his bow-tie. "But we will teach each other how."

The cobra is powerful in Hindu mythology. There are statues of the god Shiva with a cobra coiled around his neck that symbolizes his mastery over the world-illusion.

 _Finis 3/29/2016_


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